The Inside Edge made a mistake.

Six years ago, when Joseph Suliga dropped his bid for re-election to the State Senate following an incident in at an Atlantic City casino, the Union County Democratic leadership picked Freeholder Nicholas Scutari to run for the seat over Assemblywoman Linda Stender.  This website dismissed Scutari as a hack, calling him the "Senator from Gregorio," a reference to his association with then-Linden Mayor John Gregorio.  Upon reflection, that was unfair.  Since going to the Senate in January 2004, Scutari has emerged as a thoughtful and independent thinker.  The Inside Edge views the 40-year-old legislator as a rising star and regrets our earlier characterization of him.

Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Fanwood) is under consideration for a seat on the Board of Public Utilities, according to several Democratic sources familiar with her interest in the state post.  The speculation seems to have annoyed her Republican opponent, former Scotch Plains Mayor Martin Marks, who could face a replacement candidate for the second time in six years. There has been talk of Stender's interest in a pension boosting job since she lost a bid for Congress last year by nine percentage points for an open seat she nearly won two years earlier. 

Marks and his running mate, Bo Vastine, have asked Gov. Jon Corzine not to appoint Stender to the BPU.  "By being complicit in this quid pro quo to get a politician in danger of being voted out of office a cushy state job, you would directly contradict the two priorities you set for yourself upon becoming governor," Marks wrote in a letter to the Governor.  We ask you not to abet yet another end run around the electoral process, like those we saw in the 2002 Lautenberg for Torricelli U.S. Senate candidate switch and the 2003 Scutari for Suliga State Senate candidate switch that occurred right here in the 22nd district. If such a switch occurs again -- this time connected to the promise of a lucrative state job for Mrs. Stender -- the citizens of New Jersey and especially here in the 22nd Legislative District will not accept any reason other than New Jersey politics as usual."

Republicans can stop the appointment of Stender, if Senate Minority Leader Thomas Kean, Jr. (R-Westfield) refuses to sign off on her nomination.  Kean has senatorial courtesy over Union County appointments that require Senate confirmation.

Two Democratic Senators seemed a bit piqued yesterday when the Hudson County Assignment Judge implied that the Senate Judiciary Committee was dragging a Superior Court Judge through the mud as they questioned him during a confirmation hearing that would give Frederick Theemling tenure until he reaches the mandatory retirement age of seventy.  The reaction of State Sens. Raymond Lesniak (D-Elizabeth) and Nicholas Scutari (D-Linden) sends a signal that the Judiciary Committee, in a change of direction, is prepared to question judicial nominees about their records.

Theemling, a former Hudson County Prosecutor and a candidate for Congress against Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) in 1992, seemed incredibly unprepared for any questions from Senators regarding his nearly seven years on the bench.  Scutari was seeking an explanation for what appeared to be an unusually large number of appeals to his decisions - 114 of his cases were appealed since becoming a Superior Court Judge.

In Trenton to support and defend Theemling, Assignment Judge Maurice Gallipoli accused the Senators of treating Theemling harshly.  "I earnestly suggest to you that this is a good man who should not be dragged through the mud," Gallipoli told the panel.

That bothered Lesniak, who told Gallipoli that the role of the Judiciary Committee was to question nominees about their "qualification, character, ability and record." 

"Asking legitimate questions about that record has nothing to do with dragging a person through the mud," Lesniak said.

State Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Linden) thinks that New Jerseyans, the ones who already live in Bartelsland where 90% of the districts are general election safe, would be better served by giving voters less oppprtunities to decide who holds public office.  Scutari wants to increase Senate terms to five years; since 1971 Senators have run for two-year terms in the election after reapportionment, followed by two four-year terms.  

New Jersey voters have routinely rejected efforts to increase terms of office for elected officials.  A 1956 referendum to increase the Sheriff's term from three years to five went down 65%-35%, by a margin of 449,903 votes.    Supporters of the initiative tried again in 1962, losing by 195,266 votes, 59%-41%.

State Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Union)

TRENTON- State Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Union) wants to change terms for members of the state Senate from four to five years, and when he opens the item up to discussion on the Senate State Government Committee, state Sen. Whip Kevin O’Toole (R-Essex) goes in the opposite direction by broaching the issue of term limits.

“You can’t say New Jersey is a success story,” O’Toole says. “This committee has the opportunity to do something bold."

State Sen. Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth) doesn’t immediately align herself with O’Toole’s suggestion, but does question lengthening the terms of service of legislators.  She worries about creating even more insular elected offices.

“When you extend the term, you only let the incumbent continue that (natural incumbent) advantage,” Beck says.  “The way our districts are crafted now, it’s very difficult to overturn an incumbent. You have to have a safeguard that you’re not simply crafting a way for those in office to simply stay in office.”

Songwriter Red Mascara

TRENTON - In 1960, Gov. Robert Meyner complained that New Jersey didn’t have an official state song that bands could play when he appeared, so songwriter Red Mascara wrote “I’m from New Jersey,” he tells the Senate State Government Committee.

Mascara’s state song passed both houses of the Legislature in 1972, however, the governor never signed the measure into law and Mascara’s ode to the Garden State dangled into history.

Now, as the state senate committee considers the passage of four official state songs packaged in a bill sponsored by state Sen. Jeff Van Drew (D-Cape May), an elderly Mascara fights for the inclusion of his song in the official canon.

Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Union)

TRENTON – Of interest in this Senate State Government Committee today is a bill sponsored by state Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Union), which would change the term of members of the state Senate to five years, and the term of Assembly people to three years followed by two years in an alternating pattern. Presently, the committee will consider the bill.

Plainfield Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs

PLAINFIELD – Get it right in four years or you’re gone. 

That’s the message the voters consistently deliver in the Union County city of Plainfield, and looking at past results, most of their elected leaders get it wrong. 

In 125 years of political wrangling, only one mayor won reelection here. 

That was the late Al McWilliams, a self-professed New Democrat who in 2005 failed to get over a rising crime wave and lost his bid for a third term to machine Democrat Sharon Robinson-Briggs by 325 votes, 2,713 to 2,388.

Now Robinson-Briggs, 49, Plainfield’s first woman to serve as mayor, readies for her reelection campaign next year in what will likely be a hard fought Plainfield contest with once and future councilman Adrian Mapp, a McWilliams ally and now leader of the New Democrats, who’s energized by his successful return to local politics.

SCUTARI-WHELAN ‘NEW JERSEY COMPASSIONATE USE MEDICAL MARIJUANA ACT’ APPROVED IN SENATE HEALTH COMMITTEE

TRENTON – A bill sponsored by Senators Nicholas P. Scutari and Jim Whelan to create an avenue of legality for medical marijuana for those suffering from chronic and terminal diseases was approved by the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee today by a vote of 6-1, with 2 abstentions.

“It is the definition of basic human decency that we do whatever we can to ease the pain and suffering of people living with severe chronic and terminal diseases,” said Senator Scutari, D-Union, Middlesex and Somerset. “When all other avenues of currently-approved pain relief have been exhausted, we need to give doctors the freedom to prescribe medical marijuana to give their patients a measure of comfort and dignity in the face of their debilitating diseases. This bill is about the most humane, compassionate option for those State residents who have nowhere else to turn in managing their illnesses.”

Lawyers will be the minority on the 2009 State Senate Judiciary Committee headed by engineer Paul Sarlo (D-Wood-Ridge)

For the first time since the new State Constitution was approved in 1947, a majority of members of the 2009 New Jersey State Senate Judiciary Committee -- six of eleven -- are not lawyers.  Chairman Paul Sarlo and Vice Chairman John Girgenti are not attorneys, as is fellow Democrat Loretta Weinberg.  Among the Republicans, Gerald Cardinale (who serves as the unofficial ranking Republican), Joseph Kyrillos and Jennifer Beck are not attorneys.

The lawyers on the Judiciary Committee are Democrats Raymond Lesniak, Nicholas Scutari, Robert Smith and Nia Gill, and Republican Bill Baroni. 

Senate President Richard Codey, who is responsible for the non-lawyer a majority -- a move some pols are applauding -- is one of a few non-lawyers to serve as Senate President.